Stage Blood
by stepintomyworld
Summary: Kate takes Cara to her first crime scene. Cara shoes off her knowledge of theatre. (Part 2 of the Cara Beckett series) again K just for safety.


Stage Blood

It had been a week since Beckett had fully gotten custody over Cara, and she still had no idea on how to look after her. Castle, on the other hand, had some idea's to help Beckett with her niece. A few days ago he had introduced Cara to Alexis, the two girls spent the day shopping and chatting, Martha went with them too.

Beckett was beginning to enjoy having Cara around. Every night she'd come home from work and there was dinner and her niece waiting for her, every Friday night she and Cara would stay up, watch any chick flick they felt like, played any board game they wanted to and/or just talked. If Beckett was working late Cara would go to her Grandfather's or to the Castles' even then she would come home and there would be a pre-made dinner on the top self of the fridge with a note saying 'at Grandpa's/Castles', Left you dinner.'

On a January morning at about 3:30 Beckett phone started ring, she picked it up and answered it, "Beckett, morning Esposito yeah, ah-huh, alright, be there in a minute." As she put the phone down, she got up and walked into the guest room that now belonged to Cara. The teen was snuggled up under the blankets with a small smile on her face, Beckett grinned at how peaceful Cara looked. Beckett walked to beside her bed and lightly shook her niece, "Cara, Cara, you've got to get up."

"Huh, oh, morning Kate, what time is it?" asked Cara sleepily as she reached for the clock beside her. Somehow, the time didn't shock her "3:35, well, what you know, I must have slept in." Beckett laughed at Cara as she playful pulled the sheets off Cara's bed and threw them at her niece.

"Come on, get dressed and on the way I'll introduced you to a brand new of substances that you'll learn to live off. Coffee!" joked Beckett as she walked out into the living room/ kitchen area. About ten minutes later Beckett and Cara were in Beckett's car driving to the crime scene, As they got they meet Ryan and Esposito,

"Hey Beckett, Morning Squirt." Greeted Esposito as he ruffled Cara hair and in return got a light punch on the arm.

"So what have we got?" asked Beckett as she knelt by Lanie who was examining a patch of blood in the grass,

"All I can tell you is your vic, is in one of these trees." Explained Lanie, as she started looking up in to all the trees trying to find the body. Beckett told everyone to start looking.

As they started searching Castle turned up, he saw Cara leaning against a tree, yawning, and Beckett in the middle of the park looking up into a tree '_trying to find the body'_ he thought. Castle walked over to Beckett and just stood there watching her, Beckett turned around to see Castle, just looking at her in that strange way he always did, but she seemed to notice it more and more now. It had been three weeks since the kiss and she had tried to forget about it, She hadn't told Castle yet, but her and Josh had broke up only 9 hour before hand, _'It's better if he doesn't know.' _She convinced herself. "Hey Castle, you haven't seen a body anywhere have you?"

"I'm sorry Detective, no I haven't, but I can help look if you wish?" He said as he started looking up in the trees, as he turned he saw Cara yawn, look up and mouth the words "_oh, shoot!"_ then called out to Beckett "Kate?"

"Yeah Cara, what is it?" asked Beckett as she walked over to where Cara was standing

"Kate, I think I just found your body." called Cara as she pointed up to a body hanging out of the tree.

As they got the body out of the tree, and put it on the ground they found the body was covered in some sought of blood-like liquid. Beckett just looked at Lanie and said "What is it?" as she smelled the body '_minty' _she thought, a small voice from behind the group piped up "its stage blood."

The whole team turned to look at Cara who was at the back, crouching by the patch of 'blood' on the ground.

"What is it?" asked Castle as he and Beckett walked over to where Cara was and stood beside her. A little more conformably, she stood up and talked a little louder, "stage blood, it's a mix of some substances and chemicals, it made this way so they can make fight and torture scenes on stage or on set look more realistic then just red paint. The mint you smell is if an actor gets some up their nose or in their mouth it doesn't irritate them till they can get off stage or set and wash it off."

The way that Cara explained it put Beckett in to shock, Castle just asked what they were all thinking, "How do you know about all this stuff?" Cara just surged and said "I took a stage make-up and special effect class for high schoolers over three weeks last summer in Chicago, My teacher let us have a giant fake blood fight in this an old barn she owned, about the middle of the fight, some boys had combined mud with the fake blood and was pelting it with sling shots they had brought with them. By the time our parents came to pick us up, we looked like we had just been a part of the re-enactment of WW1 in that barn. It's one of the best memories I have of that summer in Chicago."

Castle laughed, Beckett giggled a little under her breath. Lanie called for them and the trio walked over to the body, "all I can tell you at the moment is that your vic is white male, seventeen-eighteen and was stabbed once in the back, then bought here had stage blood dumped on him then hung in that tree for show."

"Long length to cover up the murder." Wondered Beckett, "have we found any ID yet?"

Ryan lifted his hand, to show a wallet he had found at the base of the tree, "His name is Alroy Kitling, He lives about a block and a half away from the park."

"Is there any chance I could get the body back to the morgue now?" asked Lanie as she stood up from examining the body. "Yeah sure." answered Beckett.

As Lanie left, Beckett sent Ryan and Esposito back home so they could get some rest before they had to start again at 7:00 that morning. Beckett had offered Castle a ride to his place but he declined saying that he brought his own car. So it was just Beckett and Cara as usual, Cara had curled up on the back chair and fallen asleep, Kate just looked back to see her niece so peaceful and clam not knowing that ten minutes later she was going to be woken up for the second that morning. But at that moment she was safe and asleep.


End file.
